Links Between Crime And Punishment And A Dolls House Essays

Links between Crime and Punishment and A Doll's House Links between Crime and Punishment and A Doll's House There are many links between Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and A Doll's House, by Henrik Isben. Each character goes through many ironic situations. Throughout both of the works all three types of irony are used. In this essay irony is going to be used to link the two works together. Dramatic, situational, and verbal irony are going to be used to link the two works together. Dramatic irony is used throughout Crime and Punishment. The reader knows that Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov killed the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna. A quote to support this is, "He took the axe right out, swung it up in both hands, barely conscious of what he was doing, and almost without effort, almost effort, almost mechanically, brought the butt of it down on the old woman's head." (Dostoyevsky 114) No one in the novel knows who killed the pawnbroker and her sister except for Raskolnikov. The police officer, Porfiry Petrovitch, suspects that Raskolnikov killed the pawnbroker and her sister but he cannot prove it. The reader also knows that Luzhin puts money in Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov's pocket when she is not looking. After Sofya, whose nickname is Sonia, finishes talking to Luzhin she leaves. Sonia has no idea that Luzhin has put money into her pocket. Raskolnikov's friend, Andrei Semyonovitch Lebezyatnikov, was present when all of that takes place. "All of this was observed by Andrei Semyonovich." (Dostoyevsky 460) Luzhin goes to a reception for Sonia's father, Semyon Zakharovitch Marmeladov, and announces that Sonia is a thief. Sonia immediately denies the accusation. Luzhin tells her to look in her pocket. Sure enough the money that he was missing was there. Luzhin wants Sonia to marry him but she does not love him. Luzhin plans to blackmail Sonia into marrying him. Lebezyatnikov steps in to save the day when he says, "I saw it. I saw it.... And even though it's against my convictions, I would be prepared to swear to it on oath in any court of law you'd care to name, because I saw how you slipped it into her pocket on the sly!" (Dostoyevsky 465) A Doll's House also contains many examples of dramatic irony. In A Doll's House the reader is aware that Nora borrowed money from Krogstad without her husband's permission. Nora also forged her father's name to gain the money. She says, "You don't know all. I forged a name." (Isben 44) In the following conversation between Nora and Christine it is clearly stated that Torvald does not know of Nora's actions: "Mrs. Linde. And since then have you never told your secret to your husband? Nora. Good heavens, no!" (Isben 13) Another example of dramatic irony in A Doll's House is when Nora wants to practice a dance called the Tarantella. When Torvald goes to look in the letter box Nora says, "Torvald please don't. There is nothing in there." (Isben 46) The reader knows that Nora has not forgotten the dance. The reader knows this when Torvald goes to check the mail and Nora begins to play the Tarantella. Nora then says, "I can't dance to-morrow if I don't practise with you." (Isben 46) The reader knows that all Nora is trying to do is keep Torvald from reading the mail which contains a letter from Krogstad. Situational irony is also used throughout the two works. In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov is the one who murdered the two sisters. It was totally unexpected when Nikolai came to the police office and said, "I'm the guilty one! The sin is mine! I'm the murderer!" (Dostoyevsky 413) The reader did not expect Nikolai to confess to the two murders because the reader knows that Raskolnikov is the one who murdered the two sisters. Porfiry did not expect Nikolai to confess either. He was positive that Raskolnikov had murdered the pawnbroker and her sister. It is also ironic when Raskolnikov goes to the police station and says, "What if it were I who murdered Lizaveta and the old woman?" (Dostoyevsky 211) Zamyotov just sits back and smiles. Raskolnikov then says, "Admit that you believed me! You did didn't you?" (Dostoyevsky 211) "Of course I didn't! And now I believe you even less!" (Dostoyevsky 211) The reader expects Zamyotov to do his job and arrest Raskolnikov when he confesses to the murders. Letting Raskolnikov is a surprise to everyone including himself. In A Doll's House there are also examples of situational irony. An example of situational irony is when Nora leaves Torvald.

Eternal Love Through Death Essay Example

Eternal Love Through Death Essay Example Eternal Love Through Death Paper Eternal Love Through Death Paper Essay Topic: Keats Poems and Letters Love, being one of the most debated topics in literature, often serves as a source of inspirations for many of writers and poets, including John Keats. Throughout his life, he wrote countless love poems and letters, addressing his lover – Fanny Brawne. The star, apart from being the symbol of steadfastness and constancy, it is also a metaphor representing Keats himself. Through Keats’ idea of â€Å"Mansion of life†, the poem is consisted of two floors where the first floor displays his passionate love for Brawne while the second floor talks about his inner desire for death. Keats first expresses his ideal, however paradoxical love. There are two essential yet conflicting qualities in this poem – the reality verses the ideal and the immortal verses the mortal. On one hand, he would like to be like a star, steadfast and unchanging. On the other, he dislikes the solitude of the star as it has to watch â€Å"the moving waters† and â€Å"the new soft-fallen mask/Of snow† from afar like a â€Å"sleepless Eremite†. He continues to state that if he â€Å"has to live ever†, he would rather â€Å"pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast†. The ideas to be eternal and to love simultaneously do not go hand in hand. To love, one has to be human and therefore not an immortal, steadfast star. In the last line of the poem, Keats acknowledges that he would like to â€Å"live ever† in love, but he has to be human in order to experience love, which hints that the love between Keats and Brawne will not last and will eventually fade away as time goes by. The other possible alternative to immortalize their love is â€Å"swoon to death†. One of Keats’ letters from 3 May 1818 to Fanny Brawne echoes the idea of â€Å"swooning† and it says â€Å"†¦I love you; all I can bring you is a swooning admiration of your Beauty. †(Poet.  org) This can be interpreted that he wants to die while experiencing intense, ecstatic love or according to the letter, overwhelmed by her beauty. While I was reading Bright Star, I could not help but catch the similarity between Keats and Shakespeare’s idea of love. In the opening of Shakespeare’s sonnet 116, Shakespeare talks about his ideal love and marriage. Keats, being a reader of Shakespeare, is in some way affected or inspired by him. Shakespeare describes love as an â€Å"ever-fixed marks† that â€Å"is never shaken† even in the wildest storms. Keats transformed Shakespeare’s â€Å"ever-fixed† into steadfastness. Keats then moves on to talk about a more sexual and sensuous love. With more explicit descriptions of â€Å"my [his] fair love’s† body parts, those descriptions hint the idea of sex and orgasm. He imagines himself â€Å"pilliow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast†. The word â€Å"ripening† gives a notion of youth, implicating that the lady is young and energetic. Keats also describes the rising and falling of her chest when she takes her â€Å"tender-taken breath†. If he could, he would â€Å"so live ever†. However, it is impossible to live forever and the only solution would be â€Å"swoon to death†. Keats did not explicitly tell the readers what it means to be â€Å"swoon to death† and leave us a lot of room for imaginations. The word â€Å"swoon† and other erotic images of the lady’s body parts bring us to the subtext of the poem – sex. La petite mort is a French idiom or euphemism for orgasm, meaning little death. According to Oxford Dictionaries, â€Å"swoon† means â€Å"to enter a state of ecstasy or rapture†. Whether he intended to talk about sex at the end of the poem is still indefinable as we have no idea of what Keats was thinking when he wrote the poem. Though Keats did not write any overly sexual poetry, there is always a strong erotic indication in many of his works. If the sexual subtext is intended in the poem, I believe that it creates a nice denouement to the poem. Keats’ obsession with death and his love for Fanny are intertwined seamlessly throughout the poem. In one of his letters, he states â€Å"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death† (Poet. org). Not only is Keats intimidated by death, to some extent he is also intrigued by it. Even though he is worried about the approaching death, to him the promise of death is comforting and soothing. The only resolution to achieve the paradoxical ideal of being eternal as well as experiencing love is death. Through death, immutability and steadfastness can be achieved. Keats has seen many people died in his lifetime. His father died when he was eight; his mother died from tuberculosis when he was 14; his brother Tom died also from tuberculosis when he was 19. Along with his family’s deaths, he has also seen a lot of patients died as he was also a medical student. Therefore, constantly seeing people die in a way reminds him of the transience and the mutability of life. There are some religious references in the second quatrain of the poem. All these references, other than conveying the loneliness and the solitude of the star, also illustrate his longing for the promising death. The poem was written in 1819, the same year when Keats contracted with tuberculosis. The word â€Å"ablution† is heavily loaded with connotations, both religion and about death. From the Oxford Dictionary, â€Å"ablution† refers to the washing or cleansing of the body†. In Christianity, there are different forms of ablution and one of them is the preparation before the burial of a dead person. Here Keats is hinting that his death is near and the priest will cleans his body after his death with â€Å"the moving waters†. Further Keats also mentions the â€Å"soft-fallen mask/Of snow† in the following two lines. Seasons always act as symbols of different stages of human life in literature. Spring refers to birth or new beginning; summer means maturity; autumn represents old age while winter symbolizes death. In line 7-8, with â€Å"the mountains and moors† covered in snow, such explicit image suggests that death is approaching. Though death is coming, Keats is not browbeaten. Yet, he is fascinated with death as it helps him to accomplish the co-existence of eternity and love. Bright Star is a poem that can be read on many different levels. To me, the poem is not merely a declaration of his ardent love for Fanny Brawne. It is also an expressive lyric poem addressing his awe as well as obsession with death. The main themes of the poem are smoothly woven together and this showcases Keats’ expressiveness and his wit. Keats, John. Bright Star. n. d.  poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21012